1. Field of the Invention
The field of the invention is compound hand held tools designed for use with Barbeque grills, especially the round pot belly type of barbeque grills, also known as kettle grills, that have circular grills made of heavy wire, although the invention works well with most other types of grills as well. While the primary purpose of the invention is to operate as a grill lifter and manipulater, the invention also provides means to scrape grills to help clean them, to manipulate hot air vents found on barbeque grills and to manipulate hot charcoal briquets.
2. Description of the Related Art Including Information Disclosed Under 37 CFR Section 1.97-1.99
The inventors have searched the current market place and were not able to locate any tool that could act as a handle for a barbeque grill, let alone perform all of the functions that the present invention is capable of. Most grills for the round pot belly type or kettle barbeque grills do not come with any handle and when they are in place to be utilized they are recessed down into the body of the kettle, thus making them difficult to remove, especially when hot. The present invention was designed to fill the need to be able to securely manipulate grills of the type described with one hand. Additionally, the present invention was designed to fill the typical needs of a person operating a barbeque grill by acting as a utility tool. The present invention is able to scrape and thereby clean grills and to manipulate hot air vents and position hot charcoal briquets, thus eliminating the need of any other tool for a person operating a barbeque grill.
While no product was located on the market that could act as a handle for the above referenced type of grill, let alone act as a comprehensive utility tool of an operator of a barbeque grill, a patent search did disclose the material prior art set forth hereinbelow. Copies of the patents described hereinbelow are submitted herewith. All of the material prior art of which Applicants are aware is set forth herein below.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,482,181, Grill Lifter, issued Nov. 13, 1984, inventor Charles G. Shepherd, shows a barbeque grill lifter. However, Shepherd's Grill Lifter requires the user's hand to be directly over the fire while grasping the grill with the handle and even when the grill is removed from the fire the user's hand would still be in close proximity to the grill which would then still be hot. These problems are overcome by the present invention. When lifting a grill that has food on it, thus requiring the grill to remain level, Shepherd's Grill Lifter requires the user to apply significant pressure to the handle to prevent the handle from twisting in the user's hand. No twisting force is created in the use of the present invention under the same circumstances. All forces arising from the use of the present invention move in the directions of and through the length of the handle or at 90 degrees thereto as the result of gravity. Unless the grill was loaded with food in an unballanced manner, i.e., not evenly distributed along either side of the center support spine of the grill, there would be no tendency for the present invention to attempt to twist in the hand of a user. Sheperd's Grill Lifter also requires a larger area of the grill to operate and can not grab hold of the outermost rib of a round grill as the present invention does. Additionally, Sheperd's Grill Lifter is not a compound tool and would not be useful as a grill cleaner.
Design Pat. No. Des. 282,518, Barbeque Grill Lifting Tool, issued Feb. 11, 1986, inventor Patrick E. Mahoney, shows a barbeque grill lifter. However, the way in which Mahoney's Barbeque Grill Lifting Tool functions is not understood by these inventors or this author but it appears that it does not actually grasp the grill in any way and would thus not provide the user with secure control over the grill. The parallel grooves in the bottom of Mahoney's Barbeque Grill Lifting Tool make it appear that it was either intended to work with a different type of grill or to function in some fundamentally different manner than the present invention. Additionally, Sheperd's Grill Lifter is not a compound tool and would not be useful as a grill cleaner.
U.S. Pat. No. 1,587,350, Oven-shelf Handle, inventor William Parke, issued Jun. 1, 1936, shows an oven-shelf handle which while capable of being designed to grasp a grill, was obviously not intended to do so. It could not be placed in its final position where it could securely grasp the grill until the grill was actually lifted out of the body of the barbeque because the grills are recessed down into the body of the barbeques and this prevents the user from getting to the edge of the grill as reflected in FIG. 2 of Parke's Oven-shelf Handle. Parke's Oven-shelf Handle also has the problem of needing different sized models depending on whether the grill is composed of an even or odd number of parallel struts because in use it needs to be placed to straddle the axis of the grill. Additionally, Parke's Oven-shelf Handle could not function as a grill scraper.
U.S. Pat. No. 2,747,911, Food Handling and Scraping Tool For Use With Grills, issued May 29, 1956, inventor Paul H. Kuever, shows a tool that is suited to scrape a grill but is of no use in attempting to physically lift and handle a grill.